Highlights in Reading Comprehension Intervention Research for Students with Learning DisabilitiesBy Linda H. Mason and Jessica L. Hagaman

Presentation by Marta van de Mond

Reading comprehension is the “essence of reading” (Durkin, 1993)

• Reading comprehension is essential for understanding texts for Social Studies and Science.

• Reading comprehension assists in learning Math.

• Reading comprehension decides upon success in society.

• It is estimated that 90% of high-wage jobs require post-secondary education.

• Employment might be limited without strong literacy skills.

Reading Comprehension for Students with Learning Disabilities

LD student have challenge with:• Meaning of text• Relating text to prior

knowledge• Making inferences• Identifying main ideas

LD students do not have strategies to read and do not engage in monitoring what they read due to struggling with the actual reading process.

Additionally, they confuse narrative and expository readings requiring different reading strategies. Therefore, LD students lose comprehension of the read material.

Impact of Decoding and Fluency on Comprehension

Reading requires:• Word or text decoding• Fluency• Vocabulary knowledge

If there are problems in any one of the above requirements, the reader spends too much time and effort on the process of reading and all the cognitive process is spent, leaving no space for comprehension. Also, if the process is that difficult, motivation to read is compromised. In order to improve comprehension there should be intervention for decoding and fluency.

Research?

60 students grades 4-8 were taught how to “Reread-Adapt and Answer-Comprehend” (RAAC).The questions students had to read were:1. Who is the main character?2. Where and when did the story take place?3. What did the main character do?4. How did the story end?5. How did the main character feel?

After four months of instruction students’ fluency and comprehension has improved (Therrien et al., 2006)

Narrative Text

Narrative pieces come in various forms: Aural presentation Pictures Television Text

Story grammar of narrative piece: Characters Setting (time and

place) Action or problem A conclusion or

solution Emotion

LD students have challenge with identification of what’s important in the story, its theme, structure components including setting and plot.

Narrative Text Interventions:

Story MappingSelf-Questioning InterventionsStory Grammar for a Read AloudCombining Comprehension Interventions

Story Grammar for a Read Aloud Research

According to various research, reading stories out loud to students, with preparing for and explicit teaching of Story Grammar prior to reading, supports LD learners in reading comprehension.

Story Mapping (visual representation or graphic organizer) Research

Comprehension is much improved with using story mapping, providing that explicit instruction in story retelling, both orally and in writing, takes place.

Self-questioning (before, during, and after reading) Research

• According to some research, self-questioning surpasses story mapping (Taylor et al., 2002) in comprehension results.• Themes Instruction Program (Williams et al., 2005) includes:

1. Discussion before reading

2. Story reading (aloud to a younger student)

3. Self-questions for discussing key elements

4. Story theme identification and generalization to a variety of situations

5. Theme knowledge and story structure transfer to other story examples and/or real-life experience

Students of different ages participated in different

studies and results were very successful for all

groups; however, theme was still elusive to LD

students.

Combining Comprehension Interventions

Research # 1 (Johnson, Graham, and Harris, 1997)• 47 LD students grades 4-6• Story grammar: Who, When,

Where, What did the character(s) do?, What happened next?, How did the character(s) feel?, How does the story end?

• Comparison to explicit instruction for self-regulation for goal setting, self-instruction, , or goal setting and self-instruction

However, story grammar supported comprehension, self-regulations could not be tested due to intensity of support.

Research # 2 (Faggella-Luby, Denton, and Deshler, 2007)• Heterogeneous group of gr. 9

students – 14 with LD• Embedded Story Structure (ESS)

– self-questioning, story structure analysis, and summarizing

• Comprehension Skill Instruction (CSI) – strategy use and story structure knowledge

• Random samples used different strategies: ESS was much higher (ES=.78) than CSI regardless of LD presence or absence

Explicit instruction and grammar strategies support comprehension in LD students, but story retelling, theme development, and writing requires more intense instruction for the LD group.

Expository Text Inconsistent styleCommunicating truth or empirical facts, theories, and

datesUnfamiliar text structures (lists, compare/contrast,

time-sequence, procedural, problem-solution, classification, concept, cause-effect)

Conceptual densityDifficult vocabularyExpectation of prior knowledge

Expository Text SupportsText Enhancements

• Graphic Organizers• Cognitive Mapping• SM, SFA, SSFA• Visual Display• Mnemonics• Computer Assisted Instruction

Cognitive Strategy Instruction

• Main Idea Identification and Summarization

1. Self-Questioning

2. Paraphrasing

3. Summarization

4. QAR• Text Structure Instruction

Multicomponent Interventions

• Multipass• POSSE• TWA

Text Enhancements assist students in identification, comprehension, and recalling key information. LD students adapt to different styles of text enhancements.• Graphic organizers

There are 5 categories (Dexter & Hughes, 2011):

1. Cognitive mapping

2. Semantic mapping (SM)

3. Semantic features analysis (SFA)

4. Syntactic/semantic features analysis (SSFA)

5. Visual display

Graphic organizers seem most useful in studying Science (Dexter & Hughes, 2011).

Cognitive mapping links ideas with lines, arrows, and spacial arrangements. It supports students comprehension.

SM demonstrates link between superordinate concepts with coordinate concepts as collaborated by teacher and students. SFA replaces key vocabulary with cloze sentences. In seven experimental studies Bos, Anders, and others (1990, 1992) found that SM, SFA, and SSFA had immediate positive effects, but no long term effects on comprehension, vocabulary, written retell.

Visual display can be a timeline or a life cycle for example. Studies show that visual organizers help students more than just factual listing; however, geometric shapes can be confusing to LD students and researchers caution that visual organizers have to be well thought out to support this group (Griffin et al., 1991)

Text Enhancements continued…

• Mnemonics

LD students learn to improve retention of essentials in expository text by:• Insertion of mnemonic

illustrations next to descriptive illustrations

• Mnemonic method – using keyword such as conquer to learn conquistador (Mastropieri, Scruggs, & Fulk, 1990)

Based on four separate studies ran mainly by Mastropieri and Scruggs, it was proven that Mnemonics support LD students’ comprehension (ES=1.62)

• Computer Assisted Instruction

Based on two separate studies from 1995 and 1996, Computer Assisted Instruction had a small effect on improving comprehension. The techniques were used to • Highlight main ideas• Pose visual questions• Receive teacher’s comments and

notes• Access a glossary

With computer technology having daily progress, perhaps today this method would be more successful.

Cognitive Strategy Instruction gives best results for LD students.

Main Idea Identification and Summarization includes:• Self-questioning• Paraphrasing• Summarization• Question-Answer Relationship – QAR

Self-questioning has 5 steps:1. Question: What are you studying this passage for?2. Finding and underlining the main idea3. Thinking of a question about the main idea4. Learning an answer to the question5. Looking back, and questions and answers

The study of gr. 8 and 9 students had small results of ES=.49, but the process laid the groundwork for cognitive strategies for LD students. (Gajria et al., 2007)

Paraphrasing

RAP – instruction to find a main idea• Read a paragraph• Ask yourself what the paragraph was about• Put the main idea and two details into your own wordsThe paraphrasing technique has improved cognition in LD students.

Cognitive Strategy Instruction continued…Summarization five step approach (Brown & Day, 1983)

1. Delete trivial information.

2. Delete redundant information.

3. Substitute super ordinate terms for a list of terms.

4. Select a topic sentence.

5. Invent a topic sentence.

This method works for Social Studies texts (Malone & Mastropieri, 1992). However, it is best when used with self-monitoring techniques.

QAR – Question-Answer-Relationships was tested in LD students in grades 1-9 (Simmonds, 1992). Students were answering three types of questions in Social Studies. The QAR method proved to improve comprehension in LD students.

Text Structure Instruction

Text Structure Instruction

With TSI training grade 8 LD students had success with understanding three passage types:1. Main idea2. List3. Sequence of events

(Bakker, Mastropieri, and Scruggs, 1997)

The students were taught highlighting keywords and finding strategy clues in text.

The Text Structure Instruction combines different components like clue words, graphic organizers, and questioning. Training for TSI can transfer knowledge to different expository readings.

Strategies for:• Prior knowledge acquisition• Comprehension monitoring• Summarization of

information throughout reading

(Baker, Gertsen, & Scanlon, 2002)• Reciprocal Teaching

Procedures: predict, question, clarify, and summarize (Palinscar & Brown, 1984)

MULTICOMPONENT INTERVENTIONS

Multicomponent Interventions continued…Multipass

Students are taught how to review chapter materials with the following steps:

Survey

Size up

Sort out

In the survey part, students summarize material, in sizing up they answer questions and paraphrase, then they test their understanding by sorting out.

The strategies include:

Pre-assessment

Strategy description

Teacher-led modeling

Strategy memorization

Guided practice with controlled materials

Feedback

Progress assessment

Guided practice with grade level materials

Feedback

Progress assessment

Multipass was successful with 8 LD students in one subject study. (Schumaker et al., 1984)

POSSE

1. Predict (from titles, headings, pictures, keywords, and brainstorm predictions)

2. Organize ideas

3. Search for the text structure

4. Summarize the main ideas

5. Evaluate understanding (Englert &Mariage, 1991)

Graphic organizers with sentence stems: I predict that… were used with LD students gr. 4-6 were helpful in following free recall (Gajria et al., 2007)

TWA

6. Think before reading

7. While reading

8. After reading

In the first part students tap into their prior knowledge and ask questions about their reading materials. During the second part students monitor speed and comprehension of read materials. Finally they come up with main ideas and summaries of what they’ve read.

This strategy proved to have small positive effects for LD students.

Peer-Assisted Intervention in the Inclusive ClassroomTwo strategies have been tested:

1. Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR)(Klinger & Vaughn, 1996)

2. Peer-assisted Learning Strategies (PALS)(Fuchs & Fuchs, 2006)

CSR includes the whole class instruction followed by small group work. The three strategies are implemented: Click and Clunk, Preview, and Wrap Up. According to research, CSR can work only with intensive training and coaching provided by teachers (Hitchcock et al., 2010).

PALS has students reading in pairs. Instruction includes:

3. Partner reading with 2 min. retell

4. Paragraph shrinking

5. Prediction relay

After 15 years of research, it turns out that more than 50% of LD students are nonresponsive to PALS intervention

Discussion• Troubling statistics: only 33% of fourth graders, 34% of eighth graders,

and 38% twelfth graders perform above proficiency in reading (National Center for Education Statistics, 2009).

• For reading intervention to be successful, it has to begin in the early grades, not when students are showing signs of struggle.

• Comprehension instruction has to be included in fluency instruction.

• Lots of research-based strategies in comprehension studies proved to be ineffective in the long run.

• Unless there is explicit, uniform instruction to teachers how to use different strategies, they do not work with LD students. LD students themselves may prefer and work better with one strategy over another.

• Once the strategies are begun, they need to continue to be effective.

• Is there sufficient time considering class size to implement sound comprehension instruction to our LD students?

ANY QUESTIONS?